The Rise And Fall Of Orkut: Google’s Decade-Long Social Media Experiment

On Monday, Google announced the end of its first foray into social networking, Orkut. September 30, 2014 will be the 10-year-old network’s final day.

ReadWrite has been covering underdog Orkut since its invention. We followed its rise to dominance in India and Brazil and its ever-constant (if somewhat understated) battle with Facebook for the eyeballs of international social media users.

We took a peek into the archives to highlight some major moments in Orkut history.

May 2009: Facebook began battling Orkut in earnest. Noticing Orkut’s presence in India, Facebook became conveniently available in Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, and all other Indian languages. The announcement came after Zuckerberg made a trip to India to talk with technologists.

February 2009: Orkut made the news when the Supreme Court of India denied legal protection to a teen being sued over comments he made on Orkut. The case set a global precedent for how far freedom of speech extends over social media.

October 2010: Even as Facebook was growing in adoption all over the world, Orkut held on steadfastly to its Brazilian majority. Orkut must have really liked futbol.

June 2011: Google launches Google+, making it look as if the company saw the writing on the wall when it came to Orkut. It may or may not be coincidence that the shutdown of Orkut was announced almost exactly three years after the launch of Google+.

January 2012: After a lot of effort, including Mark Zuckerberg making a trip to Brazil to spread the Facebook gospel, Facebook finally overtook Orkut in the one country it still dominated.

June 2014: Our first time mentioning Orkut since Facebook overtook it in Brazil. Unlike the dropped bomb that was Google Reader, Orkut enjoyed a slow decline. Now that it’s gone, Google said it will devote its “energy and resources” on YouTube, Blogger and Google+.